albatross around your neck
by swanfrost
Summary: dazai, atsushi, and parallels of kindness. or, in which dazai struggles with what it means to be kind, and maybe meeting atsushi is the best thing that has ever happened to him.


_your albatross, let it go, let it go_

 _your albatross, shoot it down, shoot it down_

 _when you just can't shake the heavy weight of living_

* * *

how can you be kind, dazai wonders, how can you be kind in a world made to destroy kindness?

odasaku takes a long, thoughtful sip of his whiskey. he doesn't question why dazai is musing about such things out of the blue, doesn't try to take apart the careful blankness on dazai's face. it's fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, crafted to perfection for the outside world.

still, odasaku pauses before answering. "that's up to you," is what he settles on, an answer that doesn't betray the honesty dazai expects from him, but vague enough for dazai's face to twitch in equal parts amusement and equal parts annoyance. "after all, the world is what you make of it."

at this, dazai's face scrunches up in childish irritation. odasaku suddenly feels a sharp stab of guilt in his gut. dazai is, after all, really just a kid. even odasaku sees the way he seems to drown, sometimes, under the weight of expectations and emptiness.

"what's this? is dazai feeling introspective tonight?" ango slides into the empty seat next to dazai, setting his briefcase on the table with a heavy sigh. "i'm sorry to have missed it."

dazai shakes his head after a brief pause, as if clearing his mind of any remaining thoughts. the flatness in his eyes still lingers, but he gives ango a smile. small, thin, and — inexplicably sad, odasaku thinks.

"no more than usual," dazai says with his usual faux-cheer. "so let's just forget it, yes? that reminds me — i read a little bit more of 101 ways to kill yourself. how well do you think death by choking on toilet paper would work? i think chuuya would be absolutely pissed if i stole his toilet paper for it."

* * *

"ah," dazai says to the still air. his next breath slips gun-smoke into his lungs.

odasaku is a heavy, damning weight in his arms. the blood seeps through dazai's sleeves, staining his skin. odd: he's never had such an overwhelming urge to scrub his skin sleek and clean and bloodless before.

curiously, the warmth of odasaku's hand on his cheek still lingers. the phantom press of the man's palm against his hair. dazai stares and stares and stares and wishes —

odasaku dies with a smile on his lips and a whimsical wish on his tongue. dazai does not know of anyone else who could do such a thing, but odasaku was always different.

"i see," dazai whispers into the silence. "odasaku, you found your own answer."

odasaku had said, _humans live to save themselves_. what did that mean, then, for a man who walked into his own death and for a boy who wanted nothing more than to die?

* * *

atsushi is a boy who has every right to hate the world. he has suffered, has bled and cried and died, his body a sacrificial altar for other people's fear. in accordance to all the karma in the world, all the laws of humankind that dazai understands, atsushi should have shanked him the moment he dragged dazai onto shore. vindictive violence is the language of the streets, and for someone with no food, no money, and nothing to offer, to not submit to the vicious, vicious cycle is akin to begging for death.

(dazai mentions this to kunikida, offhandedly, only to be met with a startled look. somehow, kunkida's ire quickly slips into concern.

"you," kunikida begins, sounding so consternated that dazai stops spinning his chair to stare at the other man.

"kunikida-kun?"

but kunikida only frowns harder, and after a moment's pause, scribbles something furious in his notebook. then, he stands and leaves, but not before awkwardly patting dazai's shoulder on his way out.

dazai can only stare after him, helplessly confused.)

but here is the thing, the truth that dazai has not yet dared to face: where you come from does not determine where you decide to set down your roots, and where you settle is not where you will stay forever. sometimes, you end up tearing up those roots with your own bleeding hands, in search of somewhere different, further, better, greener.

sometimes, you do not set down roots at all.

* * *

when dazai first meets the boy on the riverbank, as atsushi is dripping buckets onto the dirt and wheezing for breath, his first thought is not _this is the weretiger we've been tracking for the past month_ but _he saved me._

he does not think _why hasn't he tried to rob me yet?_ instead, he stares at atsushi's shivering form and wonders _how in the world is he still alive?_

this starving boy, at the lowest of his lows, still bearing the skittish gaze and the tense shoulders of past abuse and present fears — this boy still made the choice to be kind.

on a whim, dazai offers the boy dinner. he does so with a flashy pose and a mysterious smile, as if he is putting on a performance, coating himself in a thin lie of altruism. he tells himself it is to get a rise out of kunikida and that he's got a hunch about the weretiger, but as atsushi's eyes gleam at the promise of free food, dazai feels something cold clench his stomach.

he orders only cup of tea, tries to calm whatever storm's brewing in his subconscious. he very studiously does not think of children living above a small curry shop. well shit, now he's got a headache.

* * *

it's only later — way later, after atsushi's been safely tucked into agency housing and kunikida's complaints about his empty wallet have been appeased — that dazai allows himself to think about the day's events. he stares at the cracked ceiling of his room. his breath evens. whispers of gun-haze and cigarette smoke linger on his lips.

he thinks and thinks and thinks about: atsushi's quick, hesitant explanation of his background, the way his voice wavered when he choked out _orphanage_ , _headmaster_ , _kicked out_. the flat acceptance of his self-worth. atsushi parrots the word _worthless_ like it's the first thing he'd ever learned to be true; but it was the words of the only 'parental figure' he'd every had—how could he have denied it?

and in the midst of it all, dazai suddenly realizes that not once had the light in atsushi's eyes faded. it had wavered, perhaps, echoing the ups and downs of self-confidence, of fear and discomfort. but atsushi never, not even once, had suggested that he was in danger of drowning from the weight of his demons.

maybe, dazai wonders, delirious and drifting asleep, maybe it's the tiger's doing. the beast that refuses to let its master die, because they are one and the same. vengeance, after all, has no place in a symbiotic relationship, no place in a cycle of growth. of survival.

the last thing dazai sees is the clear, bright gleam of atsushi's gaze, fixated on the first kindness anyone has ever shown him.

* * *

that night, dazai sleeps deeply, drowns in dreams of untouched whiskey and a lost photograph and odasaku whispering: save people. become a good person. i know this. i know you.

...

dazai wakes up. for once, the sunlight streaming through the open curtains doesn't cut harsh across his sight. today, he looks out the window and basks in the light for a few, indulgent moments. an eternity.

...

* * *

a/n: check out my writing tumblr and twitter (both of them swanfrcst). or check out my regular tumblr ( swankitty) and twitter ( kuarpikt). talk to me. i'm lonely

epigraph & title from the song weight of living by bastille

please leave a review if you enjoyed!


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